to love and be loved in return
by tombombadillo
Summary: "We should make blanket forts more often." (post-ep for Hunt)


**For Ris and for Nen, and though this isn't exactly what I was planning on giving you, I hope it's a suitable replacement. Spoilers for Target/Hunt etc etc.**

* * *

"My father is a _spy."_ Castle exclaims, for what is possibly the fifteenth time in an hour. "My ten year old is having a field day."

He's giddy with it, he's buzzing with this new found knowledge, the fact that he managed to get his daughter back and they're both going to be okay, everything is going to be okay. He keeps fidgeting, even as Kate is trying to get at the buttons of his shirt and she keeps dragging him back with an impatient huff. She's not annoyed though. How can she be annoyed when his father is a spy and his daughter is safe? But he does question why she's in such a hurry to get his clothes off (he's not exactly complaining, she can take his clothes off anytime she wants to).

"Kate?" He hums, hands straying to the hem of her shirt (he's all for equality), but she slaps his hand away. "Is there a reason why you're trying to get my clothes off?"

"Because," she replies, finally getting that last button and tugging his sleeves down his shoulders, "you've been up for… I don't even know how long, and if you can actually tell me what day it is right now than I'll eat the curtains. And I'm tired, and I missed you, and you scared me to death, and all I want to do is get under the sheets and fall asleep."

"I'm not… I'm not tired." He insists, trying to get at her own clothes again. "And it's definitely… Thursday."

"It's Saturday." She corrects, throwing his discarded shirt somewhere in the vague direction of the laundry basket. "And you're exhausted. You flew half way around the world on little sleep as it is, and if you tell me you got your full eight hours at any point when you were over there…"

"I slept on the plane." He defends, but he rubs a hand over his eyes as he says it. Maybe just a quick lie down. An hour. And then he'll be fine.

"Doesn't count. Castle, stop _moving_."

He freezes, one arm in the air, the other wrapped around his waist because his bedroom is _cold_ and Kate doesn't seem at all interested in warming him up. "Are you mad at me?" he asks, hesitantly, lowering his arm as she flings his belt towards his wardrobe.

Kate looks up at him, her eyes dark and over flowing with something… too many things that his scrambled brain can't possibly hope to unscramble at the minute. "I'm not… I'm not mad. _I'm not_," she insists, when he raises an eyebrow at her, "it's just, you flew to _France_, and you didn't even tell me. You didn't tell Martha. Or hell, even Ryan and Esposito."

"I was going to get Alexis back." He defends, kicking off his shoes. "And all four of you would have tried to stop me."

"You really think that? Jeez, Castle. If it had made any difference at all, all four of us would have got on the damn plane with you. And I had no idea if you were going to come back. I had no idea if I'd have to go and tell Martha that her only son, and her only grand-daughter were killed thousands of miles away and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't want to sit at home waiting for you to come back, not knowing if you were even alive. Your phone was _shot_-"

"By my dad. Who's a spy."

"By your dad, who's – Castle, that's not even the point."

"What is the point then?"

"I-" Kate presses a hand against her forehead, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "I don't even know any more."

"But you're not mad at me?"

She shakes her head at him, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "No."

He nods his head, reaches for her shirt and this time she doesn't complain when he pulls it over her head. She sits on the end of his bed and pulls off her trousers as he somehow makes it to his wardrobe and pulls out that soft cotton v-necks that Kate loves sleeping in so much. He leaves it in her lap and falls face first onto his sinfully comfortable bed that he is never ever going to leave ever, ever again.

"Castle…" He grunts, can't quite fathom the energy to lift himself up and get under the covers. "Castle, just… five more seconds and then that's it."

He manages to open his eyes, manages to lift his lower body so Kate can tug the covers out from underneath him. "Alexis – what about-" he grunts, trying to force his way up again.

"She's asleep, in her own bed. I'm a light sleeper, if she needs me then she knows where I'll be."

"But-"

"And if she needs you, I'll wake you up." She slides into her bed with a little less grace than usual, pulls the covers up over them.

He thinks she's half draped across his back by the time she's finally settled, some kind of security blanket against the dreams she's almost certain are going to haunt him sooner or later, but he's not quite sure before his eyes are drifting shut and he's lost to that inky blackness of sleep.

* * *

She's there when he wakes, maybe two hours later, body jerking and trying to get away from the hail of gunfire that's so loud and real in his dreams. She doesn't try to tell him that it's not real, that he's safe and no one's going to shoot him. If anybody knows, if anybody has any idea what it's like to be haunted by phantom gunshots, it's her. She flicks on the light, casts them both in a golden light, her fingers soothing against his skin. He's home, he's in New York and his daughter is okay. She's fine. They are both fine.

"What did you do? When you had a nightmare?"

"I went for a run. Or the Precinct gym."

Castle sighed, pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes. "I don't want to go for a run. Or to the gym."

"We could make a blanket fort. Get the ice cream out. Watch that ridiculous film that you positively adore."

"Its midnight… two hours ago you said you were tired and you just wanted to sleep. You're really going to get up and build a blanket fort with me?" He asks, his voice muffled by his wrists.

"If you want to build a blanket fort at midnight, then we are going to get out of bed and we are going to build a blanket fort. With ice cream. And fairy lights." She tugs at the blankets, grabs one of his hands and hauls him up.

"You get the sheets? I'll get coffee."

"Are you sure you want coffee? We could sleep in there, you know." Kate asks him, looking at him curiously.

"I know. But I really need some coffee. And I think it's better than breaking out the whiskey."

Kate hummed in agreement, pulled the blankets and the sheets from the bed. She shoves them into Castle's arms, pushes him towards the door. "Dump those on the sofa. I'll be out in a minute."

He hovers, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "Can I wait for you? I don't-"

"It's fine," she replies, giving him a quiet smile, "I'll be right through here if you need me."

* * *

"We should make blanket forts more often."

Kate laughs. "You're just saying that because I am currently not wearing anything resembling trousers and your shirt keeps riding up my legs. You have not expressed any interest in blanket forts before; you just want to gawk at my legs."

"I like blanket forts!" Castle defends, sitting cross legged on the floor. "Your legs just happen to be a bonus."

"You need to shut up and eat your ice cream."

"I can talk while eating ice cream." He dug into the tub, pulled out a spoon that was heaped in mint chocolate chip ice cream. "It's easy to talk while eating ice cream. You know what else you can do while eating ice cream?"

Kate huffs, steps down off the chair. "Your daughter is upstairs, and she might come downstairs in the middle of the night and I would rather not be seen straddling you. So, keep your filthy mind to yourself and eat your ice cream."

"I'm feeling miserable. You should be cheering me up."

"That's what the ice cream is for." She settled down next to him, plucked the ice cream out of his hands. "And silly movies. And then you fall asleep. That is the idea."

"What if I don't want to fall asleep? What if the idea of closing my eyes and seeing Alexis in that cage and all those dead men terrifies the crap out of me?"

"Then we don't sleep, we just talk. We can talk about whatever you want to. Big, small, whatever. You can even ask me about my middle school report cards, and the crush I had on Mr. Lathkil in tenth grade. Pick my brain. Or pick yours. Whatever you want to talk about."

Castle leans back on his arms, stares at the top of the blanket fort awash with brilliant colours. "First kiss. Proper kiss, I mean."

Kate shakes her head with a smile, copies his pose and closes her eyes. "7th Grade, with Michael Haskin. He was an 8th grader and he was really, really cute. And we were having an Autumn ball, and he came up to me and just kissed me. It wasn't particularly romantic, nor was it particularly _good_, but it was Michael and he was _cute_."

"Second kiss?"

"Will Renly. I was fourteen and his family had the cabin near my Dad's, and we'd met up every summer since before I could remember. Walking, swimming, out in the boat, all holiday. And we'd walked all the way around the lake and had a picnic under this amazing willow tree. And I really don't understand how it happened, but I was lying down and then he was on top and the grass was tickling my neck, and I could hear the sound of the water on the lake and then he kissed me. And it was sweet, and romantic and everything my fourteen year old self could wish for."

"And?"

"And then we walked back, and I had this huge internal debate about whether to hold his hand, but before we got half way back this other group of boys came out of the woods and Will went off with them. A couple of days later I found out that he'd been telling everyone that he got a hand up my jumper, and then that changed into a hand in my trousers, and then… well, you can imagine. It got back to my parents and I wasn't allowed anywhere near him ever again. I was absolutely distraught."

"You went all Romeo and Juliet, didn't you?" Castle asks with a wry smile.

"Well, you could say that. Every summer, secret rendezvous' under the willow tree. And I was getting older and he was getting older, and well." She laughed, flopped a hand across her eyes. "The rumours weren't exactly wrong that time."

"And then what happened?"

"I don't really know. I think he just… left. He was there one day, and gone the next and never came back. I always thought it was my dad, caught on to what people were saying and told him to get out or he'd be making friends with the wrong end of his shotgun."

"So, he was your first?"

Kate nods, rolls over onto her stomach and reaches for the ice cream. "He was my first."

"And?"

"And what?" she replies, scooping a large spoonful out of the carton and catching the drips with her tongue. (She doesn't miss the way Castle's eyes darken ever so slightly). "You want all the kinky details?"

"Yes please, all the kinky details."

"Apart from the fact it was outside, it was very vanilla. And that's about all I can remember. And I swear, if I find that in one of your books-"

"No-one will ever know about your vanilla sex life. But, when did it get so kinky?"

"Oh, college. I was adventurous. I was very, very adventurous. I got a reputation for it. But I had a roommate at Stanford, and she knew everything about _everything_, and I wasn't particularly vanilla before, but after a year with her… oh, we were bad." Castle is looking at her with that deliciously evil look in his eyes, and Kate can already hear the question coming even as she's flooded with memories with drunk nights were neither of them were looking for a lay, but somehow ended up with their hands up each other's skirts and waking up in each others beds. Completely sober demonstrations, ice cubes and chocolate sauce and whipped cream, games of truth or dare late into the night. And the damn idiot knows what exactly is going through her mind and screw him (yes, please) because now she really does want to straddle him in the middle of this crazy blanket fort regardless of the fact his daughter and mother are both upstairs.

"You still talk to her?"

Kate shakes her head, rolls back onto her back. "I don't speak to anyone from Stanford. Which is a shame, really. There were some good people there."

"You should look them up, but okay. Next question. If you could pick one, Tom Demming or Joshua Davidson?"

Kate thwacks his arm with the back of her hand. "That's a ridiculous question and I'm not answering it."

""You said I could pick your brain!"

"Not about my ex-boyfriends."

"Please? Who's your favourite? Other than me, obviously."

Kate groans, gnaws on her bottom lip. "I was with Josh for longer."

"That doesn't answer my question. How long were you with Demming, just for curiosities sake?"

"I don't know, a month?"

"A month? That doesn't make sense." He rolls over onto his side, head propped up on a bent arm. "You were with him for like a month before I left to go the Hamptons. How soon after that did you break up with him?"

"Who's to say it was me who did the breaking up?"

Castle snorted. "If anybody has willingly given you up then they're an idiot."

"It wasn't after."

Castle blinks at her, confusion evident in his expression. "You broke up with him… before?"

"Yes."

"You were going to come with me, weren't you? Oh my god, you were going to come with me and you were going to tell me and then…"

"It wasn't your fault, Castle. And I don't think… we wouldn't have had this. Not what we've got now, anyway. Two years ago I was not in a good place, and I would have screwed us up, so badly."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do. And anyway, it doesn't matter. Ask me another question."

"Why would you have screwed us up?"

Kate rolls her eyes at him, but he's staring at her with such sincerity that she can't help but answer. "Because I wasn't making my life about me. I was making it about finding justice, and murders and death, and what I needed to do was let go. Let everything go and live my life the way that my mother would have wanted me to. And now I have, so it's okay."

"What kind of life would your mother want for you?"

"Ultimately, happy. She'd hate it if I was miserable. A good job, friends. Somebody to love, that was the most important thing. Find someone to love, Katie. Find someone who you love, and who loves you back and you'll never need anything else."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Do you need anything else?"

She tilts her head to look at him, and his expression is soft and happy and open and so loving. "No, I'm good."

He grins at her then, closes the distance between them so he can taste her, the flavour of ice cream and him mingling on her tongue. She sighs happily, sinks back against the softness of the comforter, perfectly content.


End file.
